Papa Doesn't Go

Muddling Britons last week managed a neat insult to their ally Soviet Russia. On his way to Washington, Russia's newly appointed Ambassador Maxim Litvinoff flew into Teheran, tried to fly on to Cairo in a British Overseas Airways plane. But chubby Ambassador Litvinoff was stopped at the steps to the plane with the information: "All seats already have been taken."

Ambassador Litvinoff's genial old billikin face turned purple. His snowy-haired English wife, Ivy Litvinoff, confusedly asked: "Are we going, papa?" As the plane loaded with Britons took off without the Litvinoffs, it was apparent that a first-class diplomatic incident had occurred.

Later Ambassador Litvinoff cooled somewhat and flew off in the Russian war plane that had brought him from Samara. The British Government was all apology. London reports said that prior to the incident Ambassador Litvinoff had refused passage in a special R.A.F. plane, declaring that the seats were not suitable, and that the Russian Embassy at Teheran had been informed that the transport plane was full. One London rumor, conflicting with the Teheran dispatches, claimed that the plane was already in the air when the Ambassador arrived at the airport.

While the British Government investigrated, the London Evening Standard broached the whole unsavory subject of plane priorities, said: "One hears of Sir Samuel Hoare's butler, Lady Reading's secretary-chauffeuse, the eleven-year-old son of the Marquess of Queensberry . . . all taking up space [in the Lisbon Clipper] . . . causing important British and American citizens to be delayed at Lisbon."

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